


and our clocks tick out

by archivizt



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Canon Compliant, Captain America: The First Avenger, Fate, Iron Man 1, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 13:20:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17868008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archivizt/pseuds/archivizt
Summary: "anthony’s hand finds steve’s, and he laughs star shine and cosmic dust, glowing with endless brilliance. steve presses close in an ancient dance, as old as steve himself, and breathes boundlessness across anthony's lips like a promise."they know each other in empty moments and silent instances, in past and present and every iteration of the universe that ever has been or ever will be.





	and our clocks tick out

_ steve is born in a flash of nothingness and the soft caress of the abyss, absence trailing its fingers across his skin and twisting every ticking piece of him into place. the universe inches outwards around him, a lonely expanse of new life and burning stasis, and his soul sings with fear and love and an upcycle of impossible, unnamable emotions. _

-

_ then _ ,

-

steve is born in brooklyn, a quiet thing much too small and much too sickly and much too full of impossible knowledge, and from the moment he opens his eyes, he's tangled his fingers into the strings of time around him, tugging on seconds and twisting the minutes together into something beautiful.

he grows up a normal child, aside from the ailments that curl in his lungs and through his bones and seep into every part of his being just to ache viciously. he goes hungry, he swipes apples from the vendor nearby, his mother dies with his hand in hers. his best friend starves with him, steals with him, and mourns with him through it all.

_ (and human life is still so novel to steve, so intrinsically tied to his own will, to time's will, that he doesn't want to waste his fleeting moments enduring it twisting his own fate with stolen seconds.) _

then, when he’s 22  _ (nearly as true and ancient as the universe) _ and finally unburdened by chronic pain, his best friend tumbles from a train and into the cold abyss, such a far cry for the one steve was born into.

_ (and a cold hand accompanied by a soft, familiar voice is the only thing that stops him from turning back the clock and learning, not for the first time, to live with a false life, a lie.) _

-

sarah rogers is dead, and steve feels unmoored, adrift, for the first time in his infinite life. the vibrant thrum of human emotion, sharp and scathing, arches through his veins, flows through him like molten rock, and pours out of his eyes as scalding tears. 

bucky is at his side, familiar and overwhelming  _ (like the lull of galaxies expanding and collapsing, a rhythm forever unchanging).  _

_ (it's an all consuming movement, memories battering at his mind, cacophonous and thundering.) _

he finds solace sneaking away, searching for peace, for somewhere that movement slows and seconds drag without his influence. further into the graveyard, towards the center of the wide sprawl of headstones, the hushed noise from his mother's service falls away into a barely noticeable murmur.

even as he's listening, steve doesn't catch the approaching footsteps.

he jumps when the cold hand settles on his shoulder, its weight nebulous as it turns him to face its owner. he's smiling, small and sad yet vibrant  _ (shining like a dying star) _ . when steve meets his dark, dark eyes  _ (abysmal like his home, like the furthest edges of space) _ his heart thuds heavy in his chest, battering against the soul deep ache of loss that time — that steve could never dream to surmount.

“are you ok?” he asks, voice soft as his hand falls away from steve's shoulder.

the temperature drops as they stand there, goosebumps raising on steve's arms as he stares at a tombstone whose engraved name had worn off. “no,” steve admits when the first shiver racks his body, “not really.”

_ (the next day, steve can't remember what he looks like, can only feel that cold hand on his shoulder, drawing in warmth like a black hole, and hear that soft voice, the yawning of the abyss, home.) _

-

there's a hand in his, nearly colder than the biting wind, as the plane goes down.

when he looks to his left, dark, dark eyes  _ (abysmal like his home, like the furthest edges of space) _ meet his, gleaming with familiarity and wisdom.

_ (the plane shakes, shudders, its death throes jerking through the metal frame, screeching and grinding.) _

“are you ok?” he asks, voice soft as his hand slips away from steve's.

steve closes his eyes, listens to the crackle of the ice and the rush of the sea and the familiar, deep hum of a supermassive black hole two hundred and fifty million light years away. 

he nods and says, “yeah, i think so,” and turns to grin sadly at the man beside him, “are you here to take me home, anthony?”

“not just yet,” the man replies, his hand finding steve's and squeezing just as the plane crashes into the ice.

-

_ they find steve rogers frozen, alone in the plane, laid out as if in a coffin _ .

(it's a claim, sure as stone, as much as it is a reminder of death's waiting embrace.)

 

◇

 

_ anthony is born as the first star finally folds in upon itself, a weight unquantifiable collapsing, imploding gloriously until he's expelled from the womb of a timeless infinity. the black hole, forged from a faded life as surely as he had been, burned destruction into his palms alongside glowing rebirth, a two-way street flowing through every particle of him, always and unceasingly ravenous. _

-

_ then _ ,

-

anthony is born deathly silent, little hands cold as ice, chest barely moving. the doctor thinks he's dead. he apologizes to maria, bears her shattering sobs until anthony blinks, gurgles, and finally smiles, star bright and blessedly alive. his mother holds him close, cries that he is her little sparrow — her  _ passerotto —  _ destined to soar on gilded wings.

he grows up an odd little boy, with too wide eyes and too long silences, watching carefully and moving even more so. when his father hits him, screams at him in a blinded rage,tony does nothing besides bask in the knowledge rooted deep in his stardust bones that howard stark will die and be forgotten.

_ (and when he lets his hands uncurl from his father's rope, howard's soul slipping through cold fingers, tony doesn't feel guilt, only relief and the familiar embrace of death curled in his lungs, idle but ravenous, as it always is.) _

then, at the cusp of 28  _ (young yet nearly primordial) _ , tony sees his name,  _ stark _ , painted searing white on the side of a bomb, just a few feet in front of him, its nose buried in the shifting sand.

_ (in the subsequent darkness, which tastes like the insistent pull of home, there is a man whose soul he can not touch, his edges icier than even tony's own.) _

_ (he nearly forgets the familiar silhouette when he wakes up screaming, his chest torn open and dripping with starshine and blood.) _

-

maria stark is dead, and tony feels empty, cold, like the chill of his skin has finally seeped into his core and weaved shards of ice through his lungs. 

she's buried with howard, and the service passes slowly as tony's humanity crashes over him, the moments dragging by as people sob out inconsequential condolences  _ (and the galaxy expands around them, endless and unfalteringly forgiving) _ .

_ (his heart thuds like the slow beat of a pulsar, calling for help, like a beacon just past the universe’s horizon.) _

afterwards, when the sky is less grey and rhodey holds him close through dry sobs, he asks his best friend to leave him alone for a few minutes, and curls up on the floor of his mother's music room, trying to hold all his freshly shattered pieces in place. he stares at the piano unblinkingly, biting his lip.

he won't admit he's scared, but to shatter the mansion's silence feels wrong, sacrilegious.

and he wants to play desperately, but the only song he can think of is für elise, and sitting with his mother, her fingers flying over the keys  _ (swift as comets and just as confident in their course) _ as she taught him how to play,  _ (hands like cosmic winds) _ patient and gentle.

“it will be ok,” a voice promises from behind tony, and even without looking at its source, something about its tone rings with familiarity in his gut.

tony shrugs, crosses his arms, ducks his head. he feels bared, disarmed, composure swirling on the brink of collapse. “it won’t,” he says, still staring at the piano, the intricate detail carved into the wood and marred by his initials on the fall, “it can't be.”

_ (the voice buries itself in tony's memories, familiar and warm, slow like the movement of the stars, ephemeral like the arching horizon of a black hole, of home.) _

-

he can see glacial blue eyes through the thin slits of the mask, sparking with fire under the ice.

the crack of gunfire shatters through his ears,  _ (and the code is loading, loading, loading, glacially slow, like the sprawl of the universe) _ and tony is not alone.

_ (his gut writhes as heartbeats falter and stop just yards away, and he's convinced the next one will be yinsen's, and when its not, the one after will be.) _

“it will be ok,” a voice tells him, the eyes before him blinking slow.

a hand runs over the armor, fingers tapping at the metal as the rocks rain down around them and the computer whirrs away like a dying star. 

tony shakes his head, “there isn't enough time.” ‘ _ yinsen will die, _ ’ he doesn't say, ‘ _ and there's nothing i can do to stop it. _ ’

“there's always time,” the voice insists, blue eyes alight as the computer finally finishes loading.

-

_ rhodey finds tony stark half-dead, covered in sand and bruises, cradling a blazing star in his broken chest. _

(he rambles about ice and deep blue eyes as rhodey holds him close in the dessert’s muted orange.)

 

◇

 

_ they meet in empty moments, in blank spaces between stars that echo with silence. anthony’s hand finds steve’s, and he laughs star shine and cosmic dust, glowing with endless brilliance. steve presses close in an ancient dance, as old as steve himself, and breathes boundlessness across anthony's lips like a promise _ .

-

_ then _ ,

-

steve wakes up. tony comes home.

-

they meet in turmoil, in the roaring upheaval of the wary universe they'd been born unto —

**Author's Note:**

> i wasnt sure on some of these tags but i couldnt think of any that perfectly fit!! gods where the closest even though thats not _exactly_ what this is!
> 
> please leave a comment and let me know what you think!! or find me on [tumblr at rhodess](https://rhodess.tumblr.com)!!


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